"I thought I'd give you my impression of the book so far (for the record,
I'm convinced that preterism is generically the way to go, and most
impressed so far with Russell's position on chronology; Covenant
Creation is new to me)...
The chapter on the history of creation doctrine was killer. This needs
to be taken back to the early church in detail. The connection of YEC
to Adventism can't be overdone. I've just started to scratch the
surface of about 11,000 pages of the Ante-Nicene Fathers (which I have
in PDF if anyone wants them emailed), but it seems to me so far that we
assume they approach things the way we do when they really don't...
Finally, I like the idea that the themes of the beginning and the end fit together..."
1/2 Way Through Beyond Creation Science
"I decided to start a separate topic for this because of how important it
is. In Chapter 17 of Beyond Creation Science, the issue of the
definition of Heaven and Earth is addressed. I came to a similar
conclusion as the book a while back from some independent study of the
terms. The conclusion of the book, which I essentially agree with, is
that if you use a covenant definition of "Heaven and Earth" (as opposed
to a literalistic one), you find that they are a covenant people of
God. If you apply the same hermeneutic to "world", you have an H-bomb
of a landmine...
I think these examples are clear that they make much more sense when you
use "world" as the people of God (again, either OC or NC, depending on
the context). If Covenant Creation's hermeneutic is true, the entire
crisis created by having to make these decision or actions in eternity
past (before the creation of time) evaporates. There is no need to have
made these decisions until at least after the fall (though possibly
before God's conversation with post-fall Adam and Eve), and possibly as
late as Sinai. The actions will start to make much more sense to the
passages they are found in. Reformed Theology has followed a
hermeneutic of literalism which creates and then requires the resolution
of numerous dilemmas such as Lapserianism before the creation of time
and the physical universe. If this hermeneutic is wrong, those dilemmas
evaporate..."
Beyond Creation Science and Reformed Theology
